Reassuring residents

When the attack on
the WTC caused the buildings to begin collapsing, federal, state and local
officials all began monitoring the air to check the dust and smoke for
dangerous substances, as this report describes. But just how good was the
environmental health information that agencies accrued and gave to people after
the terrorist attacks?

Within a few weeks after the incident, with the WTC still
in a raging fire, many people living in the neighborhoods surrounding Ground
Zero were fearful about asbestos and other toxins that might be in the smoke
and air they were breathing. Asbestos, fiberglass, benzene, dioxins, Freon,
PCBs and heavy metals were just a few of the toxicants residents were concerned
about. Some even debated whether the whole area should be designated a
Superfund site, based on the volume of debris and particulates in the air. (1)
Months later, the levels of asbestos in dust would be described as higher than
that in Libby, Montana, a federal Superfund site.

EPA’s then-Administrator Christie Whitman
said, “Given the scope of the tragedy from last week, I am glad to reassure the
people of New York and Washington, D.C., that their air is safe to breathe and
their water is safe to drink.”

Yet health and
environmental officials had quickly allayed initial concerns about the safety
of the air around the World Trade Center site, as mentioned.On September 16, only several days after the
events, Mayor Rudy Giuliani and EPA’s then-administrator Christie
Whitman gave residents and office workers the “all clear” sign that the
environment was safe.

The day of the disaster, within hours, as the last chapter
details, local, state and federal environmental officials began testing the
air, water and dust. After several days, the federal EPA proclaimed the
environment basically “safe,” at least outside the immediately affected area.

EPA’s Christie Whitman said, “Given the scope of the tragedy from last
week, I am glad to reassure the people of New York and Washington, D.C., that
their air is safe to breathe and their water is safe to drink.” New York Mayor
Rudolph Giuliani has said that tests of air and water have turned up “no
significant problems.”

Nevertheless, word was leaking out that conditions in and around the site were
still hazardous. Some were convinced that the area
contained potent hazards.

"It's
not safe, and what's proof of this is that medical clinics have diagnosed
people with occupational asthma already and other respiratory problems, people
that not only work down there but live down there," Joel Kupferman,
executive director of the New York Environmental Law and Justice Project, told
CNN. (2)

Some officials monitoring air, water and soil admitted that
pollutants did “climb to hazardous levels” on occasion. "The further you
get from the site, the data does not demonstrate significant risks to
people," William J. Muszynski, acting regional administrator of the
Environmental Protection Agency told a reporter for CNN. "I think you can
sensationalize -- I mean, I think you can look at the numbers, a spike, and
believe that number is overly significant," the EPA's Muszynski said.
"Most of what we do is based on long-term exposure."

Tests of soil in the
immediate vicinity of the World Trade Center did show elevated levels of
asbestos in one of four soil and debris samples, Chris Paulitz of EPA told
MSNBC. “So officials plan to keep up the monitoring,” he said, to ensure
that concentrations do not reach high enough levels to cause respiratory ills.
Rain was washing away some of the heavy particulates in the air, he said.

Understandably,
in this climate of confusion, the city Department of Health was besieged by
phone calls from residents and others. In its own communications, the DOH was
not quite so definite as EPA’s Whitman had been. While encouraging people to move back to
their homes and restore their lives to normalcy, the city urged citizens to
take precautions with dust and ash, Sandra Mullin of the city’s Department of
Health told MSNBC Online, “to protect people with underlying respiratory
problems.” The agency advises “simple housekeeping tips like removing shoes,
keeping windows closed and changing filters in air conditioners.” (3)

While the official
word was that ordinary citizens were at no real risk from being in contact with
the ash and dust remains of the trade towers, others thought far more
precautions should be taken.

“Hazards are being swept
under the rug in the interests of restoring calm. You have every reason to be
concerned when they don’t give you the data.”

From the beginning,
Kupferman, for example, was a strong advocate for more public right to know and
greater precaution. “Hazards are being swept under the rug in the
interests of restoring calm,” claimed Joel Kupferman, a lawyer with the
nonprofit Environmental Law and Justice Project, who faults the city for
failing to make public its measurements of toxins in the air and dust. “You
have every reason to be concerned when they don’t give you the data,” he
charged. (3)

At the time, of
course, there was no dearth of air quality monitoring in and around the site.
The U.S. EPA was monitoring the area’s outdoor air for asbestos and particulate
matter and for levels of asbestos in the dust. And the state Department of
Environmental Conservation was also adding to that effort with further
measurements of fine particulates.

But controversy
ensued over whether government scientists were testing for precisely the right
chemicals, or, whether they were deliberately withholding information from the
public.

Kupferman
filed a Freedom of Information Act request to get data about the EPA's
monitoring of pollutants, but both his group and the Queens-based Center for the Biology of Natural
Systems, were unsuccessful in getting environmental monitoring data from
government agencies. “They even declined our Freedom of Information Act
request,” Kupferman told MSNBC.

Some environmental
experts expressed concern that other substances besides asbestos were of
greater concern shortly after the attacks. Asbestosis, the scarring of the lung
from exposure to asbestos fibers, according to biologist Peter deFur, who
teaches at the Center for Environmental Studies at Virginia Commonwealth
University in Richmond, takes prolonged exposure to asbestos.

“The larger
problems are heavy metals and organic compounds,” deFur told MSNBC on Sept.
26,two weeks after the catastrophic
attacks. Mercury, lead, copper, nickel, cadium, chromium, dioxin and
polychlorinated biphenyls [PCBs] could all be present in the air because of the
materials found in everyday office equipment, from copiers and printers to
computers and electrical equipment. (3)

Several
organizations began doing their own independent tests, unsatisfied with
government reports and an inability to get monitoring data from government
agencies.Kupferman took samples of
dust and debris and found not just asbestos at levels (3 percent) similar to
those found by EPA—4.5 percent, or 4.5 times the safe level—but also high
levels (15 percent) of fiberglass, the substance used to replace it, and other
types of mineral fiber (65 percent), MSNBC reported.

Although fiberglass
is not as dangerous as asbestos, pulmonologist Neil Schachter, medical director
of respiratory care at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, told MSNBC, “We
do not as yet know what the health consequences of breathing fiberglass fibers
are.” It is known that direct contact with fiberglass fibers can irritate the
skin, nose and throat, however, and according to the American Lung Association,
“There is a possibility that these fibers cause permanent damage to the lungs
or airways, or increase the likelihood of developing lung cancer.”

Newsweek also reported on a new
study by independent researchers who suggested that more asbestos was released
than EPA tests were revealing, in a finer-particle, more hazardous form. In a
Newsweek web exclusive October 5, 2001, David France described the study by the
Virginia firm HP environmental and its findings that the force of the building
collapse shattered asbestos into fibers too small to be picked up by standard
EPA testing methods. “This stuff was just crushed, just pulverized,” lead author
Hugh Granger told the magazine. “As it turns out, when we now measure and look
for these very small fibers in the air and buildings, we find them, and we find
them in uniquely elevated concentrations.” (4)

By October 5th, tens of thousands of
workers had returned to offices on Wall Street and the Financial District,
while some 12,000 of the 20,000 displaced residents were now back in their
homes.

Juan Gonzalez also
reported a story on the wide array of toxic chemicals in the dust -- in an Oct.
26, 2001, front-page column, with a tabloid cover that screamed “A Toxic Nightmare at a
Disaster Site." His story detailed the EPA tests' findings of notable
quantities of hazardous benzene, as well as dioxin levels discharged from a
sewer pipe into the Hudson River that were more than five times higher than any
previously recorded in New York Harbor. (5)

By October 5th,
Newsweek reported, tens of thousands of workers had returned to offices
on Wall Street and the Financial District, while some 12,000 of the 20,000 displaced
residents were now back in their homes. (4)

New York, NY—Oct 4, 2001

Photo: Andrea Booher/FEMA News Photo

This had pulmonary health experts increasingly
worried. Dr. Alan Fein, chief of pulmonary and critical-care medicine at North
Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System, said he had treated five patients with
what he calls “World Trade Center syndrome,” respiratory distress stemming from
relatively brief exposures of a day or two near the collapsed buildings. And he
expects there will be more. “We probably will find out a lot more about the
health aspects of asbestos from this event, unfortunately,” he says.

Many critics close to the issue argued that EPA health
professionals didn’t had enough data to be able to advise the public and first
responders on potential hazards, and therefore misled the public with respect
to those hazards. Daily News columnist Juan Gonzalez charged that EPA and
state and local officials had concealed the dangers of the dust to reassure a
jittery public facing a terrorist assault, and to reopen the stock market to
avoid deeper damage to the U.S. economy.

"EPA
officials and fire-fighting experts were well aware, from previous studies of a
handful of spectacular and tragic fires in hotels, commercial buildings and
downtown areas, that such blazes are capable of releasing a witch's brew of
some of the most toxic substances known—including mercury, benzene, lead,
chlorinated hydrocarbons and dioxins. Despite this prior knowledge, federal
officials rushed to dismiss or understate potential health dangers to the
public and rescue workers at the site during those first few days," wrote
Gonzalez in his book "Fallout: The Environmental Consequences of the World
Trade Center Collapse" (The New Press). (6)

Whatever it was in
the air, alone or in combination with other pollutants, the dust was starting
to sicken people in the community. The first shot was probably heard in October
or November when the chemically sensitive community began emailing its members
about evidence of greater asthma and respiratory ills, and warning people of
the need to guard against “environmentally induced injuries and autoimmune
diseases” that might be triggered.

“There are no
scientific papers detailing the creation, dispersion, and long and short-term
effects of a tragedy of this magnitude,” wrote the Coalition, “911 ASH” (Air
Safety Hazards). “Asbestos and fiberglass are clearly present, as is soot;
fine particles known to increase the incidence and symptoms of asthma, heart
disease, and other medical conditions. What are rarely mentioned are the myriad
toxins in the smoke itself. Since no one knows exactly what this particular
combination of plastics, PVC, office furniture, carpet, Freon, natural gas, jet
fuel, metals, asbestos, glass, fiberglass, and other components of the office
buildings do when incinerated, it is impossible to fully test for toxic
exposures.” (7)

A study in the Mortality
and Morbidity Report a year later would summarize the results of a
telephone survey conducted among Manhattan residents 5-9 weeks following the
attacks showing that among the 13% of adult respondents with asthma, 27%
reported experiencing more severe asthma symptoms after September 11.

"People feel like they are not getting a clear
picture from the authorities."

Concerns over potential health risks surrounding exposure
to World Trade Center smoke and dust didn’t really erupt until weeks after the
disaster, some time after EPA and Mayor Giuliani had made their pronouncements
of safety. Sometime in October 2001, community newspapers began reporting local
disgruntlement and confusion, and even some fierce objections to the
government’s handling:

“Many of the people
closest to the World Trade Center relief efforts are not satisfied with how
government agencies are handling the cleanup. There appear to be a lot of gaps.
In particular, residents, workers and advocates have expressed concern about
the lack of coordination, and the lack of information, on environmental health
issues at Ground Zero and the neighborhoods around it,” wrote Michael Burger,
the author of an article in Gotham Gazette - October 22, 2001. (8)

"People feel
like they are not getting a clear picture from the authorities," Foster
Maer, a downtown resident and member of the Warren-Murray Street Task Force told
the Gazette. "To the extent that information is being released
people are not getting it. And there is probably a lot of information not even
being released."

While neighborhoods were expressing concerns, discussions
were ongoing in the medical community. Mt. Sinai Hospital’s Department of
Community and Preventive Medicine jumped into the fray, educating its patients
and the public on the medical implications of the disaster. Robin Solomon and
Margaret Pastuszko said they’d received many calls, especially from the media,
about air pollution.

“We have also received 200 - 300 inquiries about the
possibility of a bio-terrorist attack and about the advisability of stockpiling
antibiotics or vaccines to counteract such an attack,” they reported. “Our message
here has been to reassure people that the City of New York is keenly aware of
the possibility of bioterrorism and that they and investigators from the
Centers for Disease Control are monitoring the situation extremely closely. To
date, there is no evidence of an attack.”

“No one was sick in the beginning of the Gulf
War, but as time went on they developed illnesses. I can only imagine that the
same thing could happen here.”

Physicians also started seeing an
increased number of patients with respiratory ailments - coughing, wheezing,
sore throats, bronchitis, new cases of asthma or its exacerbation, reported the
National Library of Medicine. It also reported that, at the same time, elevated
levels of mercury have been found in the blood of several police officers that
had been assigned to the site

“In the wake of the
September 11 attack on the World Trade Center, the potential for environmental
health risks to residents and workers in lower Manhattan has been a topic of
considerable concern among both the public and the scientific community,” wrote
the New York Academy of Sciences several months after the events.

Its community forum
held Oct. 18, for example, featured Dr. Paolo Toniolo, of NYU School of
Medicine, who discussed the complex context of this disaster, a densely
populated urban area living in conditions of high stress, “including emotional
stress, displacement and economic hardships, and future uncertainties; the
possibility of exposure to a wide variety of pollutants; and the limited information
so far on exposure.”

There was also a fierce critique of the absence of
safeguards for workers. Tom Barnett, a Manhattan police officer and a trustee
of the city’s Patrolman’s Benevolent Association, who was on the scene of the
wreckage in the beginning, says that many police, fire and other rescue workers
went unprotected in the first few days after the catastrophe. He fears that
many could develop illnesses as a result.

“There were too many to count down there,” said Barnett, who added, “No one was
sick in the beginning of the Gulf War, but as time went on they developed
illnesses. I can only imagine that the same thing could happen here.” (9)

Within a few weeks, addressing what the group felt to be an
absence of leadership from OSHA, The New York Committee for Occupational Safety
and Health published several fact sheets for workers and others engaged in the
cleanup and restoration effort detailing a host of hazards from toxic ash to
blood-borne disease risks.

Meanwhile, the
Ground Zero Elected Officials Task Force called for a single agency to monitor
environmental safety and to respond to concerns of nearby residents and
businesses. The task force was especially concerned about the dust on rooftops
and buildings, as well as the collateral dust spread by trucks transporting the
debris.